The EU is making things difficult to leave. The British people have voted to leave. Can't Britain just say they have left and enforce what they want to?

This is said slightly sarcastically, but it's not like the EU can militarily punish Britain. They can't even really economically punish Britain because a weakened Britain leaves Europe more open to Russian strenght.

I think that would be the no-deal Brexit, which is generally recognized to be a terrible idea. So much of the UK economy is tied up with the EU that severing it without any sort of deal in place would have a huge number of consequences such as:

Needing border checkpoints for goods where none were needed

Read an article a while back that just doing a short inspection per truck between UK and France would lead to lines lasting days, but can't find it right now. Even if you don't think it'll be that extreme, it's still a massive logistical issue.

I did find a good article going over why the checkpoints would be needed and what some of the challenges are (such as massive delays) (link)

Needing to adhere to different standards for imports/exports

There's stricter ones for a lot of stuff if it's coming from outside the EU. One amusing example being a lack of appropriate shipping pallets. (link)

And the problem of Northern Ireland

Where the violence between those who wanted to stay in the UK and those who wanted to join the Republic of Ireland only died down when the Good Friday Agreement took advantage of the UK/RoI memberships in the EU to let everyone pretend they got what they wanted. That obviously dies the moment the UK leaves the EU. (link)

When his life was ruined, his family killed, his farm destroyed, Job knelt down on the ground and yelled up to the heavens, "Why god? Why me?" and the thundering voice of God answered, "There's just something about you that pisses me off."

The Queen should just take complete control, state that leaving is a bad idea, and put in place a government devoted not to leaving. Argue that more should be done to make the UK a leader in the EU.

As a lover of British history, It's kinda sad to me to see Britain not being the primary leader in pushing the EU forward. Though I suppose it makes sense. The Germans have always been a people more devoted to consolidation and the British have always tried to keep themselves free from the entanglements on the continent.

In this alternate universe, I think you can be fairly certain of a UKIP surge at the next general election after they campaign on a platform of the Tories and Labour colluding to frustrate the will of the people via a "Brexit In Name Only".

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Only if the Tories didn't split, and the ERG-True-Conservatives(TM)-party took the lion share of Brexit votes, which is a very real possibility. Another reason why this isn't happening.

@ScottPress, @Arthellion:
"What is preventing this" is factual reality -- the things you can't change. Britains geographical location as an island. Britains problematic history in Northern Ireland. It also does not help that "the Brexit vote" as it is commonly understood nowadays contains directly contradicting things, so, no, it was not just "we want to leave". It was a "we want to leave, and ..." and a "we want to leave, but ..." and the ands and buts are mutually exclusive with each other and "we want to leave", so people (those that don't simply ignore the contradictions) are desperately trying and failing to square that circle.

I said this before; if you gave the people the option of relocating Britain to Antarctica and they enthusiastically voted yes, how would you implement this "simple yes or no decision"? That is the scale of issues Brexit is facing. The sum total of what people supposedly want just can't be done.

She shuddered, even as we were descending, but when we dismounted, there was no sadness, no grief. Her ice blue eyes burned in boundless fury, a look so piercing it went clean through me. It was simultaneously the most beautiful and most terrifying thing I had ever seen on her face.

Read an article a while back that just doing a short inspection per truck between UK and France would lead to lines lasting days, but can't find it right now. Even if you don't think it'll be that extreme, it's still a massive logistical issue.

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Trucks would face six-day queues to board ferries at Dover if new customs checks in the event of a no-deal Brexit were to delay each vehicle by just 70 seconds, according to government-commissioned research.

A summary of the analysis obtained by the Financial Times claims extra processing time of 80 seconds per truck would lead to “no recovery” — described by an official as widespread permanent gridlock.

The research, carried out by academics at University College London for the Department for Transport, will add to misgivings about the potential disruption of a disorderly exit from the EU. The research was presented to ministers in 2017 but never published.

Frederica: Autocracy is the most effective structure with which to carry out drastic changes.

Yang: On the other hand, democracy is a roundabout thing. And people who are disenchanted with such roundabout-ness will always say: “Let’s give power to a great politician and have him spearhead revolutionary changes.” I wonder if the masses have always wanted an autocrat. And they might just be getting the ideal autocratic ruler right now. Compared to that brilliant golden idol, democracy is nothing but a faded bronze idol.

Now, sure, you can leave without a deal. Maybe it was even possible to do that without ever coming to the table in good faith during the withdrawal period. But due to the long and intertwined nature of the EU and the UK, there are a crapton of laws that now need to be rolled over, replaced, or generally whatever. You also lose immediate access to the EU market (and others) on the previously favourable terms and go back to WTO standards. The government is likely to slash tariffs in that event, but that brings another set of issues that I'm not even remotely qualified to talk about. Here's a slightly tetchy (towards Parliament for letting it come this far) article on some of the myriad difficulties with a no deal.

The EU wants to protect its internal market and its freedoms. (Goods, services, capital, people.) To that end, it wants either barriers or regulatory agreement. With 'no deal', they can't expect the latter to be the case with the UK, ergo the former should come into action immediately. This, er... Has some recent history on the island of Ireland that nobody wants to really explore in too much detail. Plus barriers lead to stuff like what Sauce linked in the post above. It's not fun. (And Nazgus's links further upthread.)

Ur-Fascism is still around us, sometimes in plainclothes. It would be so much easier for us if there appeared on the world scene somebody saying, "I want to reopen Auschwitz, I want the Blackshirts to parade again in the Italian squares." Life is not that simple. Ur-Fascism can come back under the most innocent of disguises. Our duty is to uncover it and to point our finger at any of its new instances — every day, in every part of the world. [...] Freedom and liberation are an unending task.

@Sesc Relocating to Antarctica, huh? Sure. C'mon man, let's not blow things out of proportion. I get that this is a complicated problem, UK has been in EU for 40 years, bureaucracies are entangled and so on, but your scale is preposterous.

I wonder how the remainers who just want to cancel A50 imagine things would go if that happened. It's silly to think that we'd all just agree to carry on like before and forget about UK's shitfit. UK was in a strong position in the EU. This wouldn't be given back to Brits just cause. I imagine there would be grumblings, publically and in private, about UK being an unreliable partner and some plain old resentment ("you campaigned on the EU being a tyrannical cabal, get fucked").

I think leaving is the only sensible outcome for UK at this point, but EU doesn't have an obligation to roll over and show the belly. It should stand shoulder to shoulder with Ireland on the border issue, seeing as Ireland is in the EU with no plans to leave.

If the EU grants an extension, I'll be contacting my MEP's office again.

The comparison works exactly as intended: It describes something that is fundamentally impossible. If you believe that the Brexit-vote-Brexit is just complicated but doable, I get why you are wondering what the problem is.

(And do note that a Brexit, any random Brexit, is obviously possible -- except that the best compromise out of all the contradictions just failed twice in Parliament with historic margins.)

She shuddered, even as we were descending, but when we dismounted, there was no sadness, no grief. Her ice blue eyes burned in boundless fury, a look so piercing it went clean through me. It was simultaneously the most beautiful and most terrifying thing I had ever seen on her face.

@Sesc Relocating to Antarctica, huh? Sure. C'mon man, let's not blow things out of proportion. I get that this is a complicated problem, UK has been in EU for 40 years, bureaucracies are entangled and so on, but your scale is preposterous.

I wonder how the remainers who just want to cancel A50 imagine things would go if that happened. It's silly to think that we'd all just agree to carry on like before and forget about UK's shitfit. UK was in a strong position in the EU. This wouldn't be given back to Brits just cause. I imagine there would be grumblings, publically and in private, about UK being an unreliable partner and some plain old resentment ("you campaigned on the EU being a tyrannical cabal, get fucked").

I think leaving is the only sensible outcome for UK at this point, but EU doesn't have an obligation to roll over and show the belly. It should stand shoulder to shoulder with Ireland on the border issue, seeing as Ireland is in the EU with no plans to leave.

If the EU grants an extension, I'll be contacting my MEP's office again.

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Yeah, there would be a lot of resentment and we'd lose pretty much all of the influence we have in the EU for a good long while, but economically we'd see no change, which is the major problem we're looking at with a Brexit of any type. No Deal Brexit sees us up shit creek without a paddle. Brexit with May's deal gives us a paddle, but it's thin and liable to break as soon as it's used (Northern Ireland). Labour's deal gets us out of the creek but we're still covered in shit, and cancelling Article 50 means we get out with only minor splash damage, but the other rowers want to tip over the boat.

When his life was ruined, his family killed, his farm destroyed, Job knelt down on the ground and yelled up to the heavens, "Why god? Why me?" and the thundering voice of God answered, "There's just something about you that pisses me off."

There are, by my count, five links on this very page (standard 20 posts/page) discussing problems that can pop up in the event of a no-deal, and this is most likely just the very tip.

Curse my sudden but inevitable betrayals.

Ur-Fascism is still around us, sometimes in plainclothes. It would be so much easier for us if there appeared on the world scene somebody saying, "I want to reopen Auschwitz, I want the Blackshirts to parade again in the Italian squares." Life is not that simple. Ur-Fascism can come back under the most innocent of disguises. Our duty is to uncover it and to point our finger at any of its new instances — every day, in every part of the world. [...] Freedom and liberation are an unending task.

Now I kinda wish the EU would say to UK "you're out, we wash our hands of this busines" but I realize that being vindictive for the sake of giving Brits the finger would also be bad for the EU as far as elements of EU economy that do business with the UK. Border controls are just as bad for EU truckers as they are for British truckers, etc etc.

Now I kinda wish the EU would say to UK "you're out, we wash our hands of this busines" but I realize that being vindictive for the sake of giving Brits the finger would also be bad for the EU as far as elements of EU economy that do business with the UK. Border controls are just as bad for EU truckers as they are for British truckers, etc etc.

Any good links or explanations of why it’s a bad idea? (Beyond the obvious pissing off the rest of the EU)

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I know this mostly from the British position, I'll leave the EU side to someone like Sesc to explain better than I can.

Basically, it all comes down to money. If we leave the EU without a deal it's going to mean a lot of barriers to trade that we haven't had for decades, if ever. Goods are going to need to be inspected where previously they could enter the country without it. Given that we're an island there are only so many ways into the country that HGVs can travel through and the massive number of these trucks means that any kind of checkpoint infrastructure is not going to be able to handle in the short term and will likely cost us a lot of money going on into the future.

On top of that there's also the change in tariffs. We currently have a free trade agreement with all other EU member states as well as any country the EU has signed an agreement with. That is not a short list. No deal means we revert to WTO rules for trading with everyone. That means everyone gets treated the same way. The government has stated today that they'd reduce tariffs to 0% for 87% of imports in the short term to try and mitigate it, but that's still going to cause chaos as tons of companies in the UK rely on there being some protectionist measures in place to prevent cheaper goods from being imported. It would decimate some important industries, ones that we rely on for national security as well as major employers.

That could be manageable, though. It could be worked through if the government had planned for this from the beginning, but they didn't. There have been some meetings with industry leaders, but the most recent announcement was made without any consultation. From the very start it's been May's plan or no deal and the last couple of months have emphasised that.

This isn't even mentioning that they're planning to have completely tariff and check free travel over the Irish border, which is apparently illegal under WTO rules and could lead to Northern Ireland becoming a major smuggling route into the UK.

Basically, it's a clusterfuck of a situation and May seems to be banking on an eleventh hour win for her deal as she threatens to take us over the edge.

Word on the internet is that the Leave campaign pretty much straight up lied on numerous occasions, and promised contradictory things to different sectors to get them to think the exit deal would look like what they wanted.

Word around Manchester is that a majority of the country are racist cunts. Every student I've talked to about this says the main thing was immigration and wanting to send a "fuck you" to the EU and Westminster for letting in so many 'undesirables'. Was pretty surprised and might be a local impression, but it's been pretty univocal.

When his life was ruined, his family killed, his farm destroyed, Job knelt down on the ground and yelled up to the heavens, "Why god? Why me?" and the thundering voice of God answered, "There's just something about you that pisses me off."

Word on the internet is that the Leave campaign pretty much straight up lied on numerous occasions, and promised contradictory things to different sectors to get them to think the exit deal would look like what they wanted.

Word around Manchester is that a majority of the country are racist cunts. Every student I've talked to about this says the main thing was immigration and wanting to send a "fuck you" to the EU and Westminster for letting in so many 'undesirables'. Was pretty surprised and might be a local impression, but it's been pretty univocal.

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Can confirm from Glasgow that this is the opinion held here also, although obviously Scotland voted Remain on the whole so it's also potentially just bitterness on our part. What we're seeing now is an absolute shitshow, just stuck in gridlock now as parliament cannot agree on anything.

It's also notable that politically the situation this creates in Ireland is incredibly difficult. We've had bomb threats in Glasgow and London claimed to be from the IRA in the last week, and it's not rocket science to link that to the potential for a hard land border between the Republic and Northern Ireland which would breach the Good Friday agreement. Michael Gove made a veiled threat regarding direct rule today with Northern Ireland when Arlene Foster of the DUP questioned him regarding the fact it had been two years since the devolved Northern Irish assembly, Stormont, has sat.